PARKSVILLE MUSEUM

CALL FOR STORYTELLERS
Visual Art • Literary Arts • Music & Performance • Interdisciplinary • Spoken Word & More

Parksville Museum Storytelling Festival
A brand-new June festival celebrating stories in every form. We’re seeking creative projects—art, performance, installations, and live experiences—that explore storytelling broadly: literal or abstract, spoken or silent, traditional or experimental.

Our programmable spaces include a Heritage Church, an outdoor courtyard with a small stage, a winding forest path, picnic tables tucked throughout the grounds, and opportunities for intimate presentations or guided walking experiences across our historic buildings and landscapes. The grounds also feature pollinator gardens and a fountain, adding moments of pause, sound, and seasonal beauty throughout the site.

If you haven’t visited the Museum before, we invite you to explore our permanent exhibits and consider how this setting—its history, textures, and sense of place—might deepen, inform, and enrich your storytelling project.

The Why Behind this Event...

The Parksville Museum is operated by the Parksville and District Historical Society, a non-profit organization.

The Museum’s buildings and operations are supported almost entirely through donations and volunteer efforts. Our eight original heritage buildings and beautiful grounds are cared for by the Museum’s tiny team. To keep the Museum accessible to everyone, admission to the grounds is by donation. 

Unlike many similar spaces, we do not receive permanent funding for operations or building maintenance. Ongoing fundraising is essential to preserving these buildings, sharing the area’s history with all who visit, and continuing to be a location for special community building events like this one.

In addition to the site itself, the Museum houses an archive of more than 7,000 photographs and supports researchers and local businesses in accessing historical information. The archives also include the only copies of print newspapers from the region dating back to 1948, offering a rich and tangible (and largely untapped!) record of the community’s history.

This festival is being developed using a co-production/ revenue-sharing model, with the Museum and selected Storytellers collaborating in a mutually beneficial and sustainable way:

The Museum will:

• Create a formal agreement letter outlining each selected Storyteller’s arrangement to ensure full transparency and fairness for both parties.
• Provide the venue with no formal up front rental fees, during agreed upon times.
• Create and share marketing materials online (and some print signage, where mutually agreed).
• Manage all ticketing, registrations, sales, and donation collection.
• Issue payouts once each event/activity is reconciled.

Storytellers will:

• Help promote their event or project.
• Provide required event and marketing details.
• Work with the Museum Manager on logistics specific to their project.
• And, of course, deliver their proposed storytelling experience!

Our Co-Production Model for This 2026 Event:
Live Ticketed Events:
Ticket revenue is split 50/50 after agreed-upon upfront costs (e.g., marketing, signage, required staffing).
Capacity Info: Heritage Church (indoor) seats 60–65; outdoor courtyard (with sound system and lawn chair seating) accommodates 200+.

Visual Artists:
Work does not need to be for sale; however, non-sale exhibitions do not generate direct revenue unless paired with a ticketed workshop or related activity. We’re happy to collaborate on revenue-generating formats.
Sales commission: 60/40 (artist/museum), or 75/25 if the artist volunteers during the event.
We especially welcome temporary outdoor eco-art, evening projections, or works responding to the collection. Limited exhibition wall space may be available depending on submissions.

Literary Activities:
May use a ticketed or registration-with-minimum-donation model. Ticketed workshops are also encouraged.

Interdisciplinary / Other:
Assessed case by case based on the proposal.

If this call piques your interest, we encourage you to apply!

It’s a fantastic opportunity to try something familiar—or something entirely new in a really unique setting. And if you’d like to connect your project to local history, we’d be very happy to help you draw inspiration from the Museum’s archives as part of the planning towards the festival.

Application deadline: Monday March 30th.
All applicants will be alerted of their acceptance status by April 15th. 

Thank you for your interest! We can't wait to see your application!